


here's to the fact that i'll be sad without you

by hiraethia



Series: parallel universes (aka my prompt fills) [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alcohol, Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, a whole lot of hurt and a little bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:22:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiraethia/pseuds/hiraethia
Summary: “Please forgive me, Mom. I’m sorry, you were right,” he kept saying. “Forgive me.”Then Abby finally broke out of her stupor, rushing to his side. She didn’t hesitate before gathering Neil in her arms, holding him tightly against her chest even when his tears wet and stained her shirt.“I forgive you, Neil,” she whispered. “Sweetheart, I forgive you. It’s okay. I forgive you.”(in which one of nathan's men got to andrew and neil is left to pick up the pieces).from tumblr prompts: "how am i supposed to go on?" "don't you think you've done enough?" "how do i make you love me again?" "how much does it hurt knowing you lost me?"
Relationships: Neil Josten & Abby Winfield, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: parallel universes (aka my prompt fills) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774495
Comments: 8
Kudos: 113





	here's to the fact that i'll be sad without you

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry
> 
> (au where andrew was killed by one of nathan's men. this is only referenced as something that has already occurred - no details on his death are really given)
> 
> this is quite heavy but this is where my brain ended up going with these prompts. i've wanted to explore something like this for a while now, to see how neil would grieve differently between andrew's (hypothetical) death and mary's. so please stay safe while reading x
> 
>  **warnings** : character death, suicidal thoughts, grief and depressive symptoms, alcohol intake

It’d been one of his father’s men.

Neil didn’t actually know most of the details of what had happened. He didn’t want to.

But what he did know was enough.

First - 

Andrew had put up a fight. Of course he did. That was what Wymack had always told them, right? _Fight because you don’t know how to die quietly_. 

Second -

The man had known what he was doing. He’d known that targeting Neil wouldn’t do much for him - it wouldn’t _hurt._ So he’d gone for the next and only best thing: Andrew.

Third, and the most damning -

Neil hadn’t been there. And he should’ve.

Aaron agreed with the sentiment, at the very least. He’d hissed at Neil the morning after his brother’s funeral, eyes empty and lightless, overrun by one too many irreplaceable losses -

“How much does it hurt knowing you lost him?”

 _Knowing you killed him_.

It went unspoken, but Neil had always been good at reading people.

 _It should have been_ him. That was the truth. But many things _should have_ happened and didn’t. They should have been safe, but they weren’t. They should have been untouchable, but they were scarred. They should have been together, forged out of truths and indignant survival and fires blackening hillsides for spring to grow back with time - 

But one of them wasn’t _there_ anymore.

In the end, none of the _should-haves_ or _shouldn’t-haves_ mattered, because Andrew was still gone.

And now there was a new goalie in their lineup, recruited late in the season. Neil had learned her name at some point, but for some reason, he couldn’t seem to come up with it just then. Maybe he was slipping himself.

They were practicing shoot-outs as their final drill of the day. Because while the world _should have_ stopped, at least for one goddamn second, it insisted on dragging on and on and on. Another conditionality, never returned kindly.

The drill itself was simple enough, but it was strange, because Neil couldn’t see too well. Last time he’d checked, his vision was perfectly fine. Everything just seemed to double and triple, blurring in and out between lines and solidity because _nothing was certain anymore_.

Neil ignored the weirdness, forcing himself to step up to his place on the court. Well-aware of his teammates’ heavy gazes on his back as he cradled the ball in his racquet, he prepared for his swing.

Wymack called for him to go, puncturing the silence with a whistle.

(But even his voice, two and a half weeks after an untimely funeral, was still in tatters).

Neil took the shot. He missed the goal by a few inches, and the girl in front of him shifted awkwardly as she scooped up the ball and rolled it to the side. 

Ignoring Wymack’s heavy commentary, Neil stooped over to pick up another ball. Something warm and wet slid down his cheek. It didn’t feel like sweat. He couldn’t exactly tell anymore.

He still couldn’t see well.

Neil took the shot again, mechanically. This time, it landed - right at the bottom left corner.

It was an easy angle. Predictable. Kevin would’ve chewed him out for it. He probably _was_ , but Neil couldn’t hear him. He’d taken that same shot at that same angle maybe hundreds of times. Andrew had learned, after the third time, to block him there first.

For a second, the new goalie wasn’t there anymore. It was just Andrew, sending him a mocking salute as he leaned against his stick. 

“Better luck next time,” his voice echoed around the court. “I’ve blocked better shots with my eyes closed.” 

Andrew, eyes closed. 

His hazel irises swallowed up sundowns and dust and everything else that marked an ending. His promises turned those cessations into _beginnings_.

 _Andrew_.

(Of course he would’ve blocked it).

((Of course Neil couldn’t fault the new girl. It wasn’t like she would know)).

(((She shouldn’t have had to))).

It was happening again, that odd weight trickling down his cheek. If Neil was slightly more present, he would’ve recognized it for what it was - 

Tears.

Now, that didn’t really make sense. Because he wasn’t bleeding from anywhere, nor was he injured. He was perfectly fine, except for that blinding agony that festered like a monster - _monster_ \- just beneath his diaphragm, that awful ache that had been there since the day Andrew died, that winter tempest that breathed and stuttered and grew with _him_.

This was the worse kind of grief. The kind that broke into his home and threw out everything he knew. It was a new kind of grief, perhaps a sister lost at birth to the mourning that had clouded his heart when his mother died. Because this grief came with something else -

Hope’s corpse.

Sure, it had hurt like hell when he’d burned his mother’s body in that godforsaken car on that godforsaken beach. But some part of him had known, perhaps even accepted, that maybe it was the end for him too. 

This hope was new. Where he’d been lost and hollow up until he ran himself into a middle-of-nowhere-town, it had filled him with light and tentative promises of a dwindling winter.

And now, its body was broken by his feet.

Everything snuffed out eventually. Neil was just stupid enough to think that any kind of grief could leave him alone for longer than a few years.

Distantly, he was aware that he’d probably been standing there for much longer than necessary, judging by the cautious way Wymack began to head toward him. Neil blinked harshly, starting out of his spiral. A few more tears clawed their way down his skin, then he made his decision.

Whirling around, he headed for the court doors. He ignored Nicky’s call of his name, he ignored Kevin’s piercing glare, he ignored Wymack’s quiet words telling them to leave him alone. He shoved open the door and let it slam shut behind him. 

In the locker room, he yanked off his helmet and padding. His own fingers trembled as he stripped off his gloves, chest quivering and grief flaring and heart crushing as he haphazardly packed up his things.

Neil wasn’t sure what his plan of action was. No one had followed him out - it was probably for the better, _this_ was a breakdown far more fitting for Bee than an awkward teammate pep talk - so he let himself sink onto the bench for a moment. Gripping the cool metal until its edges dug grooves into his palms, Neil forced unwilling lungs to heave in air. 

(Every breath felt stolen and undeserved).

((But here he was, anyway)).

Neil wasn’t sure how much time had passed until he heard a door gently creak open. It wasn’t any of the Foxes or Wymack that had finally found him, but rather - 

Abby.

There was a look on her face that Neil couldn’t quite place as she gazed at him, but it felt as strained as gravity.

Belatedly, he realized that he was still crying silently. Furiously, he scrubbed a hand across his eyes as Abby approached him slowly. She took a deep breath and kneeled down next to him, hesitating for only a moment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly when Neil didn’t run away from her. After a long minute of ringing silence, she reached forward cautiously. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist. The touch was light enough that he could easily dislodge her, but Neil couldn’t even muster a twitch.

He was so tired.

“Do you want to go back to the dorms?” Abby asked again.

It should’ve been an easy question. A yes or no - _yes or no?_ \- answer, but everything had become infinitely more complicated without Andrew.

(Because while he’d always tread, not lightly, but deliberately, Andrew unwittingly left traces of himself everywhere. He was just incredible like that. Ash stains on the window, a wrinkle upon an untouched bed, a patch of sunlight that would’ve turned blond and hazel to gold).

Neil couldn’t be there. Not right then.

So he shook his head, and Abby nodded with easy acceptance.

“How about I take you back to my place then?” she offered quietly. “I don’t want you to just stay here.” 

Was he crying again? Neil couldn’t tell. He still couldn’t really see clearly, but this time it felt more like the color had been drained out of everything.

After two more minutes, he nodded. Abby smiled tentatively but warmly, and half-tugged Neil to his feet. Her hand resting on his was the only thing guiding him through the once-familiar hallways and shadows of _home_. Neil closed his eyes and let her take him along. 

His cheeks burned, with tear trails and fallen stars that left gouges through cold skin and sky.

\--

Abby was well aware of the fact that she could never protect her Foxes. Not completely. Not in a way that truly mattered in the end.

Her job was reactionary. Was picking up the shattered pieces of _children_ who had grown up far too quickly. And no matter how often she cursed the world for letting such atrocities touch and embrace kids before they even knew safety and unconditional love, she couldn’t do anything but patch up wounds already half-scarred. 

Losing Andrew had blown a hole in the Foxes’ unity. Aaron was left irrevocably angry, lashed out at anyone and everyone, and the dark shadows beneath his eyes never seemed to go away. Nicky cried more often than not, irises permanently trapped behind a watery glaze. Renee tried to keep the upperclassmen and new freshmen together, but she hardly smiled. Wymack watched Kevin too closely as he locked himself on the Court every night and drank to fall asleep. Yet, Abby _knew_ that the loss of yet another Fox, yet another _could’ve-been-son_ was rotting Wymack to the core. 

And, Neil.

He was almost an entirely different person.

He tried to keep up his usual facade, especially during practices and games, but Abby saw the moments when it slipped. The moments when he seemed thousands of miles away, when he held himself like the only things keeping him upright where his own bones, when he couldn’t speak because nothing could possibly give voice to the war within himself.

It was too painful to watch. Abby knew the strength of these kids, knew their resilience and heart, knew that someday they could and would come back from this.

But - 

She just kept asking herself: _when_ would it be too much? How many more children did they have to lose? How many more cruelties would they have to stomach until it was finally _enough_?

No one knew. 

Yet, they just had to keep finding out.

She took Neil back to her own place after finding him hopelessly adrift in the locker room, staring blankly at orange tiles while tears listlessly dripped down his chin. He hadn’t said a word since, only trailing her like a ghost as she opened the door and gently led him inside.

She sat Neil down on the couch and gave him space. Abby busied herself with rummaging around, letting the repetitive motions of cleaning countertops and straightening out utensils distract her, but not enough that she ever lost track of Neil. The entire time, she kept an eye on him, but he never moved from his spot on the couch.

It was maybe an hour later that he finally seemed to wake, lurching to his feet unsteadily. Abby was at the dining table, not-really-reading a book, and she snapped it shut when Neil started walking - no, _stumbling_ \- into the kitchen.

“Neil?” she asked carefully, standing up.

He didn’t answer her, yanking open the cabinet where Abby _knew_ the liquor was stored, taking out an untouched bottle of whiskey.

“I need a drink,” was all he said, without inflection or emotion. Abby swallowed harshly and glanced down to where his knuckles were turning white against the bottle’s neck.

“Okay,” she murmured after a tense minute. “Okay. But I’m going to stay with you the entire time, and when I tell you to stop, you stop. Got it?”

Neil didn’t give any indication that he liked her idea, but he didn’t protest. He only sat down heavily at the kitchen table, drinking straight from the bottle as soon as it opened. 

Abby watched him anxiously, clenching her fists as she wondered if she’d made the right call.

(But nothing about this was right, and nothing about this was fair).

((When would it be enough?))

Eventually she sat down across from Neil, and watched sadly as he slowly took down the whiskey, inch by inch.

Abby stopped him when he began swaying on his spot, grip slack around the glass as he tried to lift it to his lips one more time. She lurched forward, grabbing the bottle and prying it from his weak grip.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” she asked wearily. Neil only groaned quietly, burying his head in his arms as he slumped forward. Abby only let him idle there for a minute before she was standing up, carefully taking his arm and draping it over her shoulders. 

“Alright, sweetheart. You’re going to bed now,” she murmured when Neil made a muffled noise of protest.

She somehow managed to get him into her bedroom without much disaster, laying him down on the mattress and picking up the blankets. He mumbled something that she couldn’t decipher, rolling over onto his side with a wavering sigh.

Abby kept only the lamp by the bedside on as she turned to leave.

It was Neil’s shaky voice that stopped her in her tracks.

“‘M sorry.”

She turned to see that he’d sat up. Half his face was shadowed by the dim evening, but Abby could still see - 

There were oceans swelling in his irises.

Trapped in a vice, her heart twisted. She prayed to everything and anything that her voice was steady enough to carry Neil through the riptides when she spoke.

“What are you sorry for?”

Neil stared at her blankly, but Abby wasn’t sure if he was seeing her. His chin trembled as he blinked, and a tear trailed down his cheek.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he murmured again.

Abby’s breath caught painfully in her lungs.

But she couldn’t even dwell on what Neil had just said, because it was as if the floodgates had burst open, and he kept barreling on in the same, awful slurred voice.

“Remember when I asked...how to make - make Dad love me again?” he mumbled, words catching and breaking like glass. “You said love was dangerous. Love would get m-me and everyone killed.”

A whimper tore through his throat. A botched sob. Abby knew her own eyes were watering, her heart shattering alongside the boy in front of her, the boy who was too young to know the full weight of grief like an old friend.

Neil pulled himself upright. It was a thousand times worse than his silent crying earlier that afternoon. Because his sobs were beginning to sound more and more tortured, and Abby could hardly breathe herself because her throat was so tight.

“How am I supposed to go on? You were right,” he whispered harshly. “I should’ve listened. Please - please forgive me.”

He could barely speak anymore, each word torn apart with wounded, agonizing noises.

“Please forgive me, Mom. I’m sorry, you were right,” he kept saying. “Forgive me.”

Then Abby finally broke out of her stupor, rushing to his side. She didn’t hesitate before gathering Neil in her arms, holding him tightly against her chest even when his tears wet and stained her shirt. 

“I forgive you, Neil,” she whispered. “Sweetheart, I forgive you. It’s okay. I forgive you.”

But there was nothing to forgive.

And nothing was okay at all.

The only thing she could do was try and hold Neil together as the storm finally ripped through his paper walls, as his sobs escalated into weeping screams. Abby rocked him back and forth, shuttering her eyes tightly against sorrow’s unrelenting tides.

(When would it be enough?)

((She didn’t know how much more of this she could take anymore)).

It felt like hours passed. The light shifted just a few inches across the bedroom floor, but there was nothing warm about it. Abby held Neil until his screams ebbed into aching sobs into tiny wheezes. He grew heavy against her shoulder, the only remnants of his breakdown lying in the tiny but even puffs of air brushing against her skin.

Abby rested her cheek against his head, carding trembling fingers through his hair. She only dared to move when she was sure Neil had fallen asleep, gently laying him down and tugging the blankets over his shoulders.

Abby didn’t break when she leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to his temple, a fairy tale move to soothe away his pain.

Abby didn’t break when she switched off the lamp, ignoring the way the light reflected off Neil’s tear stained cheeks.

Abby didn’t break when his pleas and screams kept echoing through her head as she slowly slipped off the bed.

Closing the door behind her, she took a minute to lean heavily against it. She shut her eyes tightly, and her heart twisted and ached with a pain so visceral she could feel it in her core. 

Pressing one hand against her mouth, Abby slowly slid to the floor, curling up in the darkness, alone.

She took in one heaving breath, then another.

The first sob tore through her chest. She futilely tried to smother it in her palm.

Then came the second, then another. 

And finally - 

She broke, too.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'have it all' by jason mraz


End file.
